The whistling flamingo.
I was going through some photos from my time over the past few months at Slimbridge in an attempt to start my data analysis when I came across two short videos of the James' flamingo (that very special bird) making an interesting noise. I have posted these clips below.
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYp9IUJV09I&feature=plcp']
and the other:
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSwDo9geu6U&feature=plcp']
If you listen carefully at the start of the clips you will hear two shrill whistling chirps; these contrast with the low murmuring honks of the lesser flamingos that are milling around the James' flamingo in one of the videos. I don't hear the James' flamingo making a noise very often, in fact he is generally a very quiet bird, but when he does vocalise he sounds very similar to the Andean flamingos that reside in the South American Pen. This would make sense as these two species are very closely related - they are both in the same genus (type) of flamingo, Phoenicoparrus. The whistling call of the Andean flamingo is a lot louder and carries further than that of the James' flamingo, but then they are bigger birds. The Andean flamingos are also quiet and I generally only hear them making a noise when they are excited in some fashion. This contrasts vividly with the other species at Slimbridge, especially the greater, Chilean and Caribbean flamingos that are, on the whole, a lot more loud and noisy with each other. These Phoenicopterus species (another one of the genera of flamingo) do not whistle but instead make a loud honking noise that you can hear a good way across the centre. You can hear a clip of the Caribbean flamingos below and what a loud bunch they can be!
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmVO0TRvQ8w&feature=BFa&list=ULi9hHT5eNuLY']
